The True Nuttiness

Something big is coming.

Mary, my late wife, visited me in a dream last night.

Yeah, Valentine’s Day, cool, thanks for that babe.

I’m a weird dreamer. I will slip deep into a dream state as soon as I close my eyes. I will often shake out of that state just as quickly. This can result in hyper realistic dreams that span more time than the few seconds I’m unconcious.

That’s how Mary chose to visit me. In the dream, I was leaving our tattoo studio and walking down the hall to our jiu-jitsu neighbors at Elevated Studios. She was there, coming out of another doorway to follow me. I didn’t stop, but my eyes were locked on her face. It was different. She has a twin sister, so I thought maybe it wasn’t Mary, but it was. It was different because she had aged. It’s been six years since she passed and it looked like she had been living those years somewhere else.

She wore a grey dress, an old Halloween costume. She smiled at me. She was peaceful and comforting in my confusion. I opened the door to the jiu-jitsu studio to let her in first, but we froze there for a moment, staring at each other.

Then I awoke.

There’s been a tension hanging in me recently. There’s a weight that I can’t properly articulate.

Mary reassured me. She was there at our new venture to let me know that I was safe and in the right place.

I believe deeply in signs and Mary hasn’t visited me this vividly in a long time. There were other small things too, it was an odd day.

This podcast episode fit right in to my intuition that a new chapter in my narrative is close. Jonathan Pageau and Seraphim Hamilton discuss divination from the Old Testament to Artificial Intelligence. The path I desire most is to align my attention as closely with God’s will as I am able.

Mary showed up to let me know she will be with me through every obstacle God offers me to master.

“I Hope You Win”

I took this message from Tucker Carlson personally. I’m not through his conversation with Theo Von, but I was inspired by this positivity to return to blogging.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and I’m trying to read more. I’m going to work to share the resources I value. The effort to silence dissident voices (even those as vanilla as Carlson) is a threat to individual thought and I hope to combat it with some “radical” conversations.

GatGPT

Facebook will not be friendly to GatGPT. Google will not be friendly to GatGPT. DuckDuckGo won’t put it at the top of a search.

This is the independence answer to the corporate Large Language Models.

The founders have a record of fighting government regulation and winning those fights. This is the latest battleground in government control.

I kicked in $5 to join the waitlist and recommend you do the same.



The Digital Second Amendment

CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman before Congress, May 16th, 2023: “Government intervention will be critical.” Please regulate us!

CEO of Anthropic Amodei before Senate Judiciary Committee, July 25th, 2023: Presentation “Oversight of AI: Principles for Regulation.” Please prevent the public from making weapons with AI!

Sept. 13th, 2023 Chuck Schumer holds an off the record, closed to the public meeting with the heads of the large US AI firms. Elon Musk, caught afterward by the press, says Schumer did a “great service to humanity”. All present raised their hands in support of AI regulation.

This is an open conspiracy against the public. But it is too late.

Our federal government operates in a partnership with large, private firms to anticipate and informally execute the regulation of the American people, regardless of official action. It launders its agenda. We have all learned of the alliance between the tech oligarchs and the national security establishment. Their union has produced a “counter-disinformation” complex whose goal is the total control of the Internet and public speech.

AI journalism is uniformly produced in assistance of the narrative that the public requires regulation in advance of a national security event or, as is more fashionable, because the public cannot be trusted to live online with its own information interests. American journalism is here an extension of our government’s civil service.

Defense Distributed, in releasing GatGPT, declares a Digital Second Amendment. Americans must have access to compute, databases, and AI models, the newest weapons of the digital age, not just to defend ourselves against corporate and government depredations, but to defend our civic identity and humanity.

Ours is not a Magna Carta for Cyberspace. We know well the disastrous history and direction of Internet regulation. The Communications Decency Act passed in response to moral panic, and only accidentally yielded the protections of Section 230. The story repeats itself with public and private attempts to regulate the People’s cryptography, printable gun files, and Bitcoin.

AI regulation is an open and official provocation against the Liberty and Sovereignty of American citizens. All who advocate for it are domestic enemies of the Constitution and must be absolutely opposed. The right of the people to keep and deploy models shall not be infringed.

Dad, You’re Such a Boomer!

-Embarrassed Children

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I love meeting new people and finding connections, but moreover, I LOVE embarrassing my kids. They hate it when I hand out random information or try to help strangers find their way. Earlier in the day, I ran across a parking lot to compliment a gentleman on his Lego t-shirt in the style of Van Gogh’s self portrait.

While relaxing on the field between sets at Bourbon & Beyond, I noticed the guy behind us wearing an Offspring Smash t-shirt.

I leaned back and said, “That’s really cool, my first concert was when they toured on that album in ’94.” He replied, “Ha, I saw them in 2018.”

“Oh my God, you’re such a boomer!”

I think it was Kristen’s daughter’s words, but my boys agreed with exasperated teen noises.

I live for these moments. I’m close to three decades worth of concerts under my belt and I still get the rush of emotion to my skin when magic hits the stage. I still dance like I want to and holler like a fool when a band breaks out a surprising cover or solo.

Soon, these kids will be going to shows without me. I’m thrilled for their growing freedom, but I’m going to take advatage of every chance I get to make them red-faced before that happens!

Bourbon & Beyond: Not Enough Pictures

Day three was my most relaxed. There weren’t any “must see” acts on anyone’s list and we were all pleased that Saturday seemed less populated than Friday.

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Old Crow Medicine Show was the highlight of the day. Mary and I saw them maybe 15 years ago and they have more energy now! On top of being world class bluegrass musicians, their personal chemistry was reminiscent of a Rat Pack performance. One-liners, inuendos, down home dad jokes, and physical comedy filled the stage. I love George Jones’ “White Lightning,” but I have never seen it played live. It’s a crack up of a song and Old Crow delivered on all the beats. J.P. Richardsaon, aka The Big Bopper, wrote the song and died six days before its release in 1959.

We also got to enjoy First Aid Kit, Lindsay Lou, The Black Crowes, The Avett Brothers, The Black Keys, and Spoon.

First Aid Kit
The Black Crowes
Lindsay Lou

Lindsay Lou was loads of fun and we might check her out again on day four.

Friends and Clients!
FUNNEL CAKE